A song that made you want to make music?
Dan: Children of the Grave by Black Sabbath
Best rider you have had?
D: We’ve drunk the headlining band’s alcohol that they’ve had in their dressing room a few times. We are not sorry.
Craziest moment in the band?
Zaii: Before a show we dropped acid and managed to play a great set. It wasn’t until afterwards that it actually kicked in while we were trying to walk through a crowded, just-reopened-after-quarantine downtown Orlando at 2am. It looked like a dark ocean where everyone was drowning and looking for something to keep afloat. It was actually terrifying lol.
D: We did dance a lot that night…
Deepest lyric one of your songs features?
Z: “Torn apart, the serpent’s grace. Take my hand, become one face” – from the track Where Are We (SEMIPERMANENTDEREALIZATION E.P.)
Easiest song you wrote?
Z: ‘Memory Gaps’ from SEMIPERMANENTDEREALIZATION
Favourite song in your set?
Z: A Taste for the Black Water
Guest you’d most like to feature on your record?
D: Caroline Polachek or Peter Murphy
Hardest thing about being in a band?
Z: Aligning conflicting schedules between members
D: …and aligning on our depression schedules
Interesting fact about one of your members?
Z: I have an attraction to occult literature and psychoanalysis. He also likes to collect little espresso cups.
Jokes you have in the band?
Z: “Knife under the bed type-shit” – it’s a thing we say when explaining a situation where you got ‘in too deep’ with something unsafe.
Key to writing a song?
Z: Relax. Let yourself be seduced by the process, ride its current.
D: Conviction
Longest distance you’ve travelled to play a show?
Z: 3.5 hours
Most inspiring musician you’ve experienced?
Z: Peter Murphy w/ Bauhaus
New band you’d recommend?
Z: El Último Vecino (New Wave/Synthpop from Spain)
Opening for this band would be ideal?
D: Drab Majesty
Place you’d most like to tour?
D: Europe. Also Mexico City.
Quote that you’d like to pass on to our readers?
Z: “Evolution is gracing us with the powers of creation and destruction we once projected out onto the gods, or perhaps we are just realizing them latent within our psyches, the restless energies responsible for the seed of all spiritual thought… And so the medium is, indeed, the message.” – Genesis B. P-Orridge
Reason for the title of your forthcoming release?
Z: “Strange Wind” – sometimes there are invisible forces that pull us into certain directions beyond our understanding.
See us live at?
D: You’ll have to check our site for dates, but we’re definitely on track to do Chicago, LA, and New York this year.
The old days of music were better than the current, do you agree?
Z: I am not sure because I wasn’t alive so it would just be romanticizing on my part. However, technology and the flood of the information era may have wired the modern brain to interact with media in a way that children do with toys they get bored of quickly.
Unusual merchandise?
Z: Zines that we self-print, poetry, collage art.
Variations you’d like to do on one of your songs?
Z: Ambient variations with deep strings and choir would be really cool. I’ve always been a fan of ambient music and have produced some myself.
What do your fans mean to you?
Z: They are co-collaborators to the movements and spaces we all explore.
X-rays or any other treatments needed for band injuries?
D: We’ve been in various states of disrepair. Both me and Zaii have had ankle injuries, blood has been shed, there are always bruises, and I tore a tendon in my left hand that sidelined my guitar duties.
Z: Tiger Balm is always in our bag. We flail around pretty violently onstage and sometimes things get hyperextended. I have been in car accidents that hurt less than a show’s performance.
You’re late for a show, whose fault is it?
D: I’m 20 minutes late to everything so probably me.
Zoo animal that best describes the personality of your band?
D: It has the energy of a monkey in a cowboy hat riding a hyena like a horse.